


All That We See Or Seem

by finch (afinch)



Series: Triumvirate [2]
Category: Whatever You Want - Vienna Teng (Song)
Genre: Don't Have to Know Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-01 04:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2758838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/pseuds/finch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a red dress on the floor.</p><p>You think, "Maybe I will write a different story." So as the lights flash through the windows, you do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That We See Or Seem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starseverywhere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starseverywhere/gifts).



> The title is from Edgar Allan Poe's poem "A Dream Within A Dream"

There is a red dress on the floor.

You think, "Maybe I will write a different story." So as the lights flash through the windows, you do.

*

It's not like you woke up thinking "Today I am going to be a corporate criminal." It had started slowly, with the best of intentions in mind. You would take her to Paris, the beaches of Trinidad and Tobago, and the mountains of Chile.

You were lost in her beauty, her grace, the way she laughed at your jokes. She wasn't like your wife, she never simply obeyed and you found that intoxicating. She would tease you, she was the only one allowed to tease you. Her eyes would gleam, and you’d known you'd be calling her into your office, meeting for "lunch". You’d known you'd be buying her a gift, just to say you cared. 

You’d known eventually she was going to ask for the world, and you knew that when she did, you would say yes.

The money had to come from somewhere. The classless accountant came into play, obeying every command with a "yes, sir," and never asking questions about where and why. 

You should feel guilty about that, but you don't. You should feel guilty that you whisked her around the world, leaving your wife in the dark, alone. You don't feel guilty because every time you came back, your wife would greet you arms wide open; she was a dress with a face, and the sex was always better when you came back. 

It's why you couldn't stay; it's why nights in hotels in town were slipped through the accountant. Doesn't everyone understand? You did this because you loved her, because you didn't want your marriage to end. You were saving the both of you, the purest of intentions.

It didn't have to happen like that. The story writes itself so much better when you eliminate the lavish "business trips" and instead you stay in your office, her blow jobs enough to keep you there. The story could stay there, in your office, a personal world for just the two of you. 

But you had to share her, or share the world with her, not that it matters now which one is really true. You couldn't be convinced that a desk was a perfectly fine substitute for a bed. 

So instead you ventured out, funded by money that was almost begging for you to spend it. You think this is a good way to write the story; it is still a crime, yes, but a victimless one. The company has enough money to handle your personal use of some of its funds, your wife stays happy, you stay happy. The only flaw is the accountant, set up to take the blame, but he is less than a prole to you, and he keeps your secrets, unambitious, efficient, the perfect tool for what you need. 

You should be regretting all of this, you should be sad, and ashamed, and trying to find a way to beg for forgiveness. At the very least, you need to keep yourself out of prison, but pride was always your downfall. Pride and vanity and arrogance. It kept everyone on eggshells around you, careful to do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. 

But you don't regret any of it. 

And that says something more about you than it does any of the other players. It is entirely your fault, and the teary-eyed secretary is going to tell everyone at your trial that you took advantage. But you can’t blame her. It's what you would do, after all. 

Truth be told, that is the part of the story you wish you could rewrite the most. The part where your secretary betrays you, hands evidence over to the prosecution in exchange for immunity. 

Immunity. You think it's a funny word; does she really think she is immune from everything that she did? From the late nights in your office, giggling while you poured her more champagne. Does she really think she's safe from that, safe from the secrets you coaxed out of her while she climaxed around your fingers? She can't re-write that, she doesn't get to take all of that back.

She had started this fire, your secretary, but you would make sure everyone burned now. You couldn't understand her motives; as a businessman, you could understand risk, but not like this. 

When you rewrite it, she's still your dedicated secretary, keeping your secrets and telling you her your own. When you rewrite it, you leave in the sex. You liked the sex. You leave her loyal, dedicated, vulnerable in the way she would risk her future to protect yours. If the ship had to sink, she would be the captain at the helm, tossing you into the lifeboat. People like you aren't taken down by their secretaries; no, people like you demand their secretaries to be Cerebus at their office gates. 

Your wife hasn't played a part in your retelling. Your wife, who left in the middle of the night, tipped off by all her phone calls, took the ticket stubs and credit card statements with her. She's no longer desperately wanting; she's no longer the case study in loyalty.

If she were, you will go home, and she will greet you, and you will push her towards the bedroom, the red dress slipping off as you both stumble towards the bed, lost in the ecstasy of the excitement. You will go home, and then you will leave again, and it will repeat, and she will always be there, in that red dress. She will always wait for you, always in the dark. 

She had taken everything and left, though. 

Not everything. 

She left the dress, sitting on the floor, tossed aside like you tossed your marriage. She had been ever-loyal, ever-faithful, and you ruined that. You took from her the last thing she had - you took her dignity.

The media beats the police to your house by a hair. They are driven by ratings, by shattering the elite world you have secluded yourself in. They shout questions at you about your story, picking apart every last detail, dismantling your existence. They ask if you thought there would be no consequence. They ask if you think your riches should have been enough to suffice for your wrongdoings. They ask if you expected a different ending.

They say you - really all of the corporate world - are worse than an unreliable narrator.

Maybe you are.

Maybe you are completely wrapped up in your fantasy, looking down at that red dress and trying the impossible.

But the lights flash through the windows; you cannot write a different story.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to Kristin, my beta, for making this fic spectacular. Thanks to Sarah for the emotional support!


End file.
